Author: barboakley

Barbara Oakley, PhD, PE is a Professor of Engineering at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan; Michigan’s Distinguished Professor of the Year; and Coursera’s inaugural “Innovation Instructor.” Her work focuses on the complex relationship between neuroscience and social behavior. Dr. Oakley’s research has been described as “revolutionary” in the Wall Street Journal. She is a New York Times best-selling author who has published in outlets as varied as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. She has won numerous teaching awards, including the American Society of Engineering Education’s Chester F. Carlson Award for technical innovation in engineering education and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers William E. Sayle II Award for Achievement in Education. Together with Terrence Sejnowski, the Francis Crick Professor at the Salk Institute, she co-teaches Coursera – UC San Diego’s “Learning How to Learn,” one of the world’s most popular massive open online courses with over three million registered students, along with a number of other leading MOOCs. Dr. Oakley has adventured widely through her lifetime. She rose from the ranks of Private to Captain in the U.S. Army, during which time she was recognized as a Distinguished Military Scholar. She also worked as a communications expert at the South Pole Station in Antarctica, and has served as a Russian translator on board Soviet trawlers on the Bering Sea. Dr. Oakley is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Reader Come Home

Posted on July 25, 2019 by - Uncategorized

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week 

Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, by Maryanne Wolf. 

This lovely book uses metaphors to convey the extraordinary complexity of what happens when we read—and to describe how important it is to pause and read deeply.  As Wolf notes: “whenever we name even a single letter, we are activating entire networks of specific neuronal groups in the visual cortex, which correspond to entire networks of equally specific language-based cell groups, which correspond to networks of specific articulatory-motor cell groups—all with millisecond precision. 

“It takes years for deep-reading processes to be formed, and as a society we need to be sure that we are vigilant about their development in our young from a very early age. It takes daily vigilance by us, the expert readers of our society, to choose to expend the extra milliseconds needed to maintain deep reading over time.”

This is a book well worth reading, if only to remind us of the value of reading slowly and deeply.

Barb back in Australia in Jan-Feb 2020; and China and Korea in April—Would You Like Her to Speak for Your Institution?

Yes, by popular demand, Barb will be returning to Australia in January and February of 2020 as one of Saxton Speaker’s Bureau elite group of traveling speakers who will be visiting Australia and Australasia this coming year, including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Hobart, and other cities. She will also be in China to keynote for the East Asia Cambridge School Conference, April 18-19, 2020 in Wuxi, China; and from there she’ll be going on to South Korea.  Would you like Barb to speak for your company, university, or school? If so, please contact Saxton at 1300 799 823 or info@saxton.com.au. Hurry, before her few availabilities are taken!

The Making of the MOOC Learning How to Learn

Here’s a perspective by Barb for the npj Science of Learning blog on why Terry and she created Learning How to Learn, and what it felt like as filming for the MOOC first began. As Barb notes: “Initially, our Detroit area videotaping efforts were a disaster. I was so terrified of the camera that I looked like I was staring down the barrel of a shotgun. My voice would break, the audio would rustle, the lighting was too dim or too bright, pearls clanked against the microphone, lawnmowers erupted in the neighboring backyard, an errant buzzing fly would land on my nose. Back we’d go, take after take. ‘Is anyone ever even going to watch this?’ we wondered.” As they say, read the whole thing.

An Inspiring Message from a LHTLer with a Learning Disability and ADHD

We received this note from a dental student:

“I wanted to write and say thank you. A little over a year and a half ago, I completed your ‘Learning How to Learn’ course and read your book, A Mind for Numbers.

Today’s note came about because I can say with full confidence, and without hyperbole, your works changed my life.

A little background: When I was in 1st grade I was diagnosed with a learning disability and ADHD. I was lucky to have a family that could support and advocate for me, but I still struggled throughout my academic career. I read your book and took your course before matriculating to Dental School because I was so afraid of not being able to keep up with the curriculum, especially after taking a gap year.

The first two years is a really challenging curriculum. In addition to the basic medical sciences, students are expected to learn microsurgery skills (think fractions of mm) with a drill and restorative materials. In short, it’s been a nutty experience in learning both in the lecture hall and simulation lab.

Despite the challenges, personal and situational, I’m near the top of my class, and it is because of the application of these principles of learning you talk about in your book and course. It’s been a ‘graceful’ experience, free of all-nighters and feelings of inadequacy.

Due to my performance, I was given the opportunity to participate in a research experience this summer where I am working with my school’s pipeline program for minority and disadvantaged students. Talking to my mentor about your book and how I applied it in my studies, she asked that I share “A Mind for Numbers” and my experience with it with the students in the program. They are all reading it for the program and we have a discussion scheduled for next week.

I’ve enjoyed sharing your work so much, and I am really considering a career in education because of this experience

Don’t forget—Barb in Spearfish, South Dakota

Barb’s meetup is at 10:00 am on Saturday, July 27 at Blackbird Espresso, 503 N Main St, Spearfish, South Dakota.  If you’re in the Wyoming-Dakota area, come and have a cuppa, and share delight in learning!

Black Pen, Red Pen Mathematics 

We’ve heard great things about Black Pen – Red Pen: Math for Fun, a set of videos to teach math by  Steve Chow at Pierce College, Woodland Hills, CA. Want to learn some calculus? Give Black Pen – Red Pen a try!

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

Into Thin Air

Posted on July 18, 2019 by - Uncategorized

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week 

Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer,  “ranks among the great adventure books of all time,” notes the Wall Street Journal, and we couldn’t agree more. This book has resonated with us over the years—whenever we’ve found ourselves in a tough situation, we remember to, either literally or metaphorically, keep taking just one more step forward.  The Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters is rarely given for a book that’s an on-the-edge-of-your-seat thriller. This new edition addresses some of the controversies that arose after the book’s initial publication. A must-read, and great as well for audio.  (Two free audiobooks may be possible through this link.)

4 Books that Changed Memory Champion Nelson Dellis’s Life

4-time US Memory Champion Nelson’s ideas are always worth watching—in this video, you can learn more about which books shaped him, and why.  (And yes, we too were affected by Into Thin Air—although we didn’t end up as a world-class mountain climber like Nelson!) See as well the odd reason why Nelson doesn’t recommend the fantastic memory masterpiece Moonwalking with Einstein (hint, it has nothing to do with the book’s quality!)

Taking a Nap Does Seem to Help Learning

A writeup on a fascinating study, “Does splitting sleep improve long-term memory in chronically sleep-deprived adolescents?” provides fascinating insights.  Researchers allowed students to sleep a total of 6.5 hours during the week (a typical sleep time for Singapore students). The sleep time was either 6.5 hours all at once, or split into a 5 hour night sleep, plus a 1.5 hour nap (totalling 6.5 hours). Which worked better for student learning?  As the study author noted: “We found that memory for facts learned in the afternoon was significantly enhanced under the split sleep schedule, suggesting that the nap beforehand boosted learning. However, groups did not differ in their memory for facts learned in the morning. This means that even though the split sleep group obtained less night-time sleep prior to the morning learning session, it did not impair their ability to learn…. Interestingly, if you added together sleep duration for nap and night-time sleep, the split sleep group obtained approximately 10-minutes less sleep each day, and yet they still out-performed those on the continuous sleep schedule.”

Don’t forget—Barb in Spearfish, South Dakota

Barb’s meetup is at 10:00 am on Saturday, July 27 at Blackbird Espresso, 503 N Main St, Spearfish, South Dakota.  If you’re in the Wyoming-Dakota area, come and have a cuppa, and share delight in learning!

DARPA Funds Brain-Stimulation Research to Speed Learning

This article from DoD News outlines how researchers are trying “to identify physiological mechanisms that might allow them to enhance natural learning by electrically stimulating peripheral nerves—those that connect neurons in the brain and spinal cord to organs, skin and muscles—to make the brain more adaptive during key points in the learning process.”

“The mechanisms underlying this enhancement are not well understood,” Program Manager Dr. Doug Weber said, “but we believe that neurostimulation boosts the release of neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, norepinephrine and others that play a role in modulating cognitive processes related to learning.”

There’s probably no single “silver bullet,” he added, “but rather there are multiple processes involved. Thus, a primary goal of [the program] is to tease apart the various mechanisms to understand the links between neurostimulation, neurotransmitter release, and resulting changes in plasticity.”

See also this article: “DARPA’s New Brain Device Increases Learning Speed by 40%.”  (Now, if only we could get ourselves to think as quickly as a monkey.)

Good Questions for Teachers to Use to Drive Discussions about Quality Learning

Drs. André Booms, Senior adviseur Leren en Ontwikkelen, writes:

“Let me share my main question which I use in my lectures about study skills: What are you going to do in order to be successful or to successfully finish your study? I noticed this question is the key to having good discussions with my students. It is going about their individual study behaviour. 

“Another triggering question I use is: “Describe your ideal study day. When do you start, when do you finish, when do you have breaks, etc.” This question is a good starting point to talk about the pomodoro technique.” 

A Summary of Learning How to Learn

Anmol Singh Jaggi, a 24 year old software engineer from Bangalore, tried to summarize the course teachings of Learning How to Learn. (After all, Anmol notes, one of the course teachings was to summarize what you learn!) Here is his summary—which is indeed a good overview summary of the course.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

Bottle of Lies

Posted on July 11, 2019 by - Uncategorized

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week 

Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom, by Katherine Eban. We picked this book up after noticing that a minor prescription drug we were switched to—a generic—just didn’t seem to work right. What an unexpectedly eye-popping thriller!  You’ll learn about the hands-off ineffectiveness and incompetence of the FDA, the infectious nature of corrupt corporate cultures committing global fraud, and of the sometimes completely ineffective nature of life-saving drugs.  If you or anyone you know takes, or will take, generic drugs, you should read this book.

An Amazingly Detailed Animation of the Brain

Don’t miss this beautiful animation of the human brain, using some of the most powerful imaging techniques available. [Hat tip, French LHTL Lead Nicole Charest.]

A Video Review of Learning How to Learn

Daniel Bourke took LHTL and made a delightfully entertaining and comprehensive video review. Enjoy it here, and pass it along to your friends.

If You’re a Procrastinator

We find that LHTLers, apparently like people everywhere, often have big issues with procrastination. So here’s a long article about procrastination by the ever hilarious Tim Urban, should you desire to procrastinate further… [Hat tip, Martin Yong.]

Newest science myth: the 10,000-step rule

Fitbit wearers often work diligently to achieve 10,000 steps a day. If this is the case, you might be interested to learn that the 10,000 step guideline was apparently made up by marketing gurus—it has no basis in science.  Instead, it looks like 4,400 to 7,500 steps might be a reasonable goal.  

Yet Another Article on the Myth of Learning Styles

Even if you’re amongst the cognoscenti who already know that learning styles are problematic, this article gives a nice overview of the many problems in this area. [Hat tip, Orlando Trejo.]

A Learner’s Story

Gurpreet Paul, a high school senior at Apeejay School Faridabad, India, writes: “It’s been one year since I’ve taken ‘Learning How to Learn’ and since then, my life has changed drastically!

“From being a person who used to hate math and the intricacies of sciences to a person having a deep sense of appreciation for its proofs, laws, and theorems. For me, “Learning how to learn” was more than just a course! It was a WAKEUP CALL! Also, with the help of Khan Academy; the years of frustration and hours of crying over my inability to understand STEM-related subjects had just come to an end.

“But on seeing my classmates and juniors going through the same challenges, there was an inner burning desire for spreading knowledge which I had acquired, which was something I had never felt before. As months passed, I emerged as a new individual, who didn’t want someone else to suffer through the same as I did. By starting a new club in my school, where I used to go through the content of each lecture in Hindi; there was that satisfaction of finally doing something worthwhile in life and that moment when your juniors look up to you as an inspiration is something which I couldn’t have EVER gotten without Learning How to Learn!”

A School that Dances

If you want a happy send off for the week, don’t miss this video of Chinese principal Zhang Pengfei leading his school in a dance.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

Psychopath Whisperer

Posted on July 5, 2019 by - Uncategorized

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience, by Kent Kiehl.  Like many people, we’ve long been fascinated by people who could even think of deliberately and unfairly harming others. (Barb’s book Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend, acclaimed by Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker among others, was her attempt to understand why seemingly above-board people like—say, your boss—can still sometimes act like psychopaths.) 

The story of how Kiehl got his start in interviewing psychopaths is fascinating and, at times, edge-of-your-seat scary. Kiehl’s work in imaging hundreds of psychopaths in the New Mexico area has resulted in important new theoretical breakthroughs, which Kiehl describes in easy-to-understand fashion.  Kiehl has probably studied more psychopath brains than any other living human—he’s been able to do this in part because he’s witty and plucky, enough to spend enormous amounts of time in prisons. The Psychopath Whisperer is a surprisingly positive book—as Kiehl notes, there are now glimmers of hope for treatment. 

Barb was lucky enough to have attended one of Kiehl’s hands-on, immersive 3-day fMRI analysis workshops with Vince Calhoun and Tor Wager. It doesn’t get more intensely useful—or funny—than what that trio of seriously clownish instructors provides.

Barb in Spearfish, South Dakota on Saturday, July 27

In another of the sweeping annals of “Barb enjoys going everywhere,” she will be holding a meetup at 10:00 am on Saturday, July 27 at Blackbird Espresso, 503 N Main St, Spearfish, South Dakota.  If you’re in the Wyoming-Dakota area, come and have a cuppa, and share delight in learning!

What we learned from creating one of the world’s most popular MOOCs 

Here’s Barb & Terry’s article in npj Science of Learning on what they’ve learned from creating the course. In the article, we “reverse engineer” the course to see how creative application of well-known principles of multimedia learning appear to have helped make Learning How to Learn so popular.

Using Brain Activity to Measure Conceptual Understanding

Ensuring that students have a good conceptual understanding of a topic has long been the goal of educators–reform and traditional alike. Here comes a brilliant study in Nature Communications that, for the first time, gives researchers a way to analyze whether conceptual understanding has indeed been achieved by students. In this study, researchers “investigated whether patterns of brain activity collected during a concept knowledge task could be used to compute a neural ‘score’ to complement traditional scores of an individual’s conceptual understanding. Using a novel data-driven multivariate neuroimaging approach—informational network analysis—[the research] successfully derived a neural score from patterns of activity across the brain that predicted individual differences in multiple concept knowledge tasks in the physics and engineering domain… This technique could be applied to quantify concept knowledge in a wide range of domains, including classroom-based education research, machine learning, and other areas of cognitive science.” [Hat tip, Brandonrox10.]

We predict there will be a whole new body of research growing from this wonderful paper. 

Memory Champion Nelson Dellis Forgets His Name

Here’s a quirky reminder of Nelson’s vaunted memory prowess (not), along with an introduction to his work on Patreon. And don’t forget Nelson’s great book Remember It!

Moving Forward in Learning—One Country’s Perspective

Anniqua Rana, a Professor of English as a Second Language at the College of San Mateo in California, was in the audience at the panel discussion and Barb’s presentation in Lahore, Pakistan.  Here is her article about the afternoon of learning.

Is All Rote Learning Evil?

This perceptive column by Syed Nomanul Haq, in Pakistan’s oldest, most widely read English-language newspaper, questions Western dogma that rote learning is necessarily bad.

Barb on Memory Expert Anthony Metivier’s Podcast 

Anthony Metivier is a memory expert with great insights on how to improve your memory. In this podcast, Anthony and Barb enjoy talking about learning.

Improving Your Study Techniques: a Review of the Course

Pat Bowden of the blog Online Learning Success is back with a useful review of a new MOOC on Improving Your Study Techniques, by Maple Hupkens and Anne-Miek Hermsen of the University of Groningen (Netherlands), on FutureLearn.

The New All-Russian version of Learning How to Learn for Youth: Учимся учиться

Yes, Learning How to Learn for Youth is now available on Coursera in Russian as Учимся учиться, with an all-star Russian cast.  As Barb notes: “HSE’s fantastic new course, Учимся учиться, is a masterpiece. Anya Stogova and Vasily Klyucherov do an extraordinary job of conveying the key ideas of learning in a deeply insightful, but fun way—all solidly based the best of what we know from neuroscience about how the brain learns effectively. Who couldn’t enjoy such a fast-paced, vibrantly edited course! Want your kids to succeed? Don’t miss this course! (And incidentally, you’ll learn some great new tips yourself!)” 

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

The Artist’s Quest for Inspiration

Posted on June 28, 2019 by - Uncategorized

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

The Artist’s Quest for Inspiration, by Peggy Hadden. We were turned on to this book by Barb’s artist daughter Rachel, who has found it to be deeply inspirational for her work.

What we love about this book is its insights into how to look at life around you in a fresh way, and why these fresh perspectives are important. For example, Hadden talks about how seemingly silly questions can be valuable, giving the example of Dr. Edwin Land, the inventor of the Polaroid camera: “One day, Dr. Land and his young daughter were walking on a beach when he stopped to take a photograph of her. “Can I see it now?” she asked. When told she’d have to wait until the film went to the lab, she wanted to know why. Although the question seemed dumb at the time, because all film had to be processed in a lab, it prompted Dr. Land to consider the need for faster-processing film.” Hadden gives example after example of practical exercises to help you redevelop the fresh eye you had as a child and overcome creative blocks. You don’t need to be an artist to gain creative insight from this book!

Rachel “Oaktree”—Artist 

And speaking of creating vibrant, inspirational art, we can’t help but suggest that you check out the website of Rachel (Barb’s daughter). Rachel’s eye has always been drawn to color, and the aim of her artwork is to share her view of the vibrance all around. We can attest to Rachel’s eye for color—even as a small child, she pointed out minute differences in tooth color that the dentist himself hadn’t observed.

Apologies—Wrong Date! Barb Keynoting in Redwood City, California on July 18-19 (not June!)

Sorry—last week’s email had the wrong date. Barb will be at the Course Hero Summit reception in Redwood City, California on the evening of July 18th, and conducting an afternoon workshop on July 19th.  If you are an educator, apply to attend!

Would You Like to Volunteer as a Beta Reader of a Short Book on How to Study Effectively for College/High School? 

Barb and her friend, Olav Schewe (author of the international best-seller Superstudent) have written a short book with the best insights, based on neuroscience and cognitive psychology, about how to learn effectively—this is especially geared for college and high school students. Would you be willing to be a beta reader of the manuscript?  If so, please fill out the brief form here, and if you are selected, we’ll send you a copy of the manuscript with instructions to get started.  We’ll need all feedback back by August 5th.

A Penetrating Analysis of the Caveats of Evidence-Based Education

This brilliant paper by Nick Cowan in the journal Educational Research and Evaluation describes the “… features of [evidence-based education] that make it attractive, or at least uncontroversial and safe, to policymakers. This [attractiveness] is because it avoids casting judgment on structural features of the education system that policymakers, rather than teachers, are in a position to change. At the same time, the attractiveness of this kind of research for policymakers comes at a cost of relevance to teaching professionals…

“In a controlled laboratory environment, randomization is unnecessary as you can observe and manipulate all the features of an experiment until you know precisely how each factor affects the outcome. In the world outside of the laboratory, however, interventions are made where there are limitless varying factors (and interactions between factors) that could change the outcome. So it seems to make sense to use a research design that keeps these factors the same while varying the intervention. That produces a compelling result (almost a guaranteed causal inference if a statistically significant difference between treatment and control is found). However, the researchers still do not know whether that causal effect will survive a change in environment… To make such claims, they need a broader account of how the intervention worked, not just to demonstrate that it worked. These claims cannot be established through experimental testing.”

Read the Lost Dream Journal of Ramón y Cajal—and Standing Up to Groupthink by Academics

Here is a nice article in Nautilus about Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s rebuttal of Freud’s theories regarding dreams—along with descriptions of Ramon y Cajal’s actual dreams.  Key graf: “Santiago Ramón y Cajal, a Spanish histologist and anatomist known today as the father of modern neuroscience, was also a committed psychologist who believed psychoanalysis and Freudian dream theory were ‘collective lies.’ When Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, the science world swooned over his theory of the unconscious…. Cajal, who won the 1906 Nobel Prize for discovering neurons and, more remarkably, intuiting the form and function of synapses, set out to prove Freud wrong.” [Hat tip: Ramiah Ramasubramanian MD, FRCA.] 

Sadly, the need for debunking in science, where dominant players can obliterate common sense and prevent advancement, is evergreen. Think it doesn’t happen nowadays?  Check out this fantastic article by one of our favorite science writers, Sharon Bagley, on “The maddening saga of how an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure for decades.” (You can subscribe temporarily for free to read the article—and it’s worth your while to do so.) 

Most importantly, think of what all of this implies for the Wild West of much of educational research. There, charismatic players in dominant positions can easily stifle approaches, no matter how well-grounded those approaches might be scientifically, that contravene their own. Barb remembers going to NSF to discuss a grant proposal to help children develop procedural fluency in mathematics, and being told—”We simply don’t support research involving procedural fluency.” Also see also the fourth in Barry Garelick’s series on being a math teacher who is unafraid of going up against received dogma in education.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

Ultralearning

Posted on June 21, 2019 by - Uncategorized

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career, by Scott Young.  We’re big fans of superlearner Scott Young—hence our interview with him in Learning How to Learn. As Barb’s blurb on the book’s cover notes: “Ultralearning is the best book on learning I’ve ever read. It’s a beautifully written, brilliantly researched, and immediately useful masterpiece. If you are looking for the magic match to help light your learning, Ultralearning is it. If you want to learn anything, do yourself a favor and read this book. Now.” You can also find a special deal for pre-ordering here.

Taking Practice Tests—And Using Course Hero

Many instructors are loathe to give their students copies of their old tests. After all, good tests can be very time-consuming to develop. More than that, these tests sometimes involve tricks that  only the students who really understand the material will be able to figure out. (At least, that’s what many professors believe.) Good tests can be hard to develop in part because there are only so many tricks that professors have up their sleeves. But here is evidence from a great meta-analysis revealing that practice tests appear to beat everything else in helping students to learn effectively.

As a consequence, we’re strong supporters of Course Hero, a crowdsourced learning platform where students can find copies of old tests and other study materials to practice with—sometimes created by their own instructors.  Check it out—and let your college and high school student friends and relatives know about it!

Speaking of Course Hero…Barb Keynoting in Redwood City, California

Barb will be at the Course Hero Summit reception in Redwood City, California on the evening of June 18th, and conducting an afternoon workshop on June 19th.  If you are an educator, apply to attend!

Our Friend, 4-Time US Memory Champion Nelson Dellis in a fantastic new Netflix film

Nelson is featured in a fantastic new documentary on Netflix about memory competitions and techniques that really goes deep into the stories of some of the top mental athletes and who they are. Check out the trailer.

Small Breaks Can Be Important for Learning

Here is a very nice article by Matthew Warren in the British Psychological Society Research Digest that gives insight into why tiny breaks when learning motor skills are helpful. “The findings suggest that early improvements when learning a new skill are made ‘offline,’ during periods when the task isn’t actually being performed.” Is this approach perhaps also relevant to learning more cognitively-oriented subjects?  Is this why we sometimes find ourselves staring off into space as we work to assimilate a difficult idea? [Hat tip Joe Muskatel]

An Unfolding Book on Teaching  Traditional Math

Math teacher Barry Garelick has braved the waters of teaching math traditionally in a country that’s enamored of reform approaches. Read of his serialized adventures beginning here.

Forming the team for the delivery of Apprendre comment apprendre (ACA)

Formation de l’équipe VivAca chargée de la livraison d’ACA

Nous espérons lancer Apprendre comment apprendre, la nouvelle version française de LHTL, le 9 septembre 2019. ACA permettra aux apprenants de la Francophonie d’accéder au contenu, faire les quiz, participer aux forums de discussion, recevoir de l’aide et réaliser les travaux pour le certificat avec mention, et tout cela en français. Nous enclenchons aujourd’hui le processus de recrutement pour la formation de l’équipe bénévole VivAca qui se chargera de la livraison, de la promotion et de l’amélioration continue de la version française du cours. Nous voulons que cette équipe entre en fonction dès le 29 juillet 2019 afin qu’elle puisse se familiariser avec l’équipe, le contenu, la plateforme française et collaborer à la préparation du test bêta qui précède le lancement.

Si les apprentissages de LHTL ont fait une différence dans votre vie, si vous voulez contribuer à partager les apprentissages d’ACA au sein de la Francophonie en collaborant au sein de VivAca, nous vous invitons à soumettre votre candidature, d’ici le 10 juillet 2019, 12 PM EST en complétant et en soumettant le formulaire ici.

Nous espérons que VivAca soit représentative de la diversité au sein de la Francophonie.

Nicole Marie-Thérèse Charest Dr.sc.agr.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

Panama Canal

Posted on June 9, 2019 by - Uncategorized

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1874-1914, by David McCullough. This is a fantastic book (a National Book Award winner) about the successes and disasters of both great and awful—and great-but-awful—leaders.  After the charismatic Ferdinand de Lesseps—the Steve Jobs of his day— spearheaded the successful construction of the Suez Canal, the French grew to adore de Lesseps’ ideas almost as much as de Lesseps himself did. (As Bill Gates has said “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they cannot lose.”) De Lesseps’ desire to create another sea level Suez Canal in Panama ultimately doomed the project, killed thousands, and ruined tens of thousands more.  When the Americans subsequently took over, their initial leadership was worse than that of de Lesseps. That is, until John Frank Stevens (he of “Stevens Pass” in Washington State), took over. Between Stevens—who ultimately appeared to crack under the strain—and his successor, the very different, but equally effective George Goethals, the canal took shape. You’ll learn of Dr. William Gargas’s David against Goliath story competing against malaria, yellow fever, and perhaps worst of all, pig-headed bureaucrats. And you’ll get a sense of how the front line laborers, primarily from the West Indies, did the hardest work under appalling conditions.

Construction of the Panama Canal was the biggest construction project in history—of inestimable value in uniting the globe.  Its clever use of the fearsome Chagres River to provide the energy to run the locks is a lesson in elegant engineering. During our tour of the Canal last week, we were surprised to learn that the Panama Canal competes with the Suez Canal in bringing goods from the Far East to the Americas.  McCullough’s book gives a wonderful understanding of the main players and issues behind this extraordinary human feat of engineering.

If The Cuckoo Don’t Crow

LHTLer Susannah Rosenberg brings our attention to the 2-minute video “If The Cuckoo Don’t Crow,” which provides a wonderful example of a Suffolk accent while also telling the story of the expert who ignored the hurricane warning of an “amateur.” For a fun romp through more of the accents of England, watch voice coach Andrew Jack’s one and a half minute  “A tour of the British Isles in accents.” And here’s a three minute tutorial on how to do an Australian accent.

Annals of Great Research—Interleaving

We’ve always been fans of researcher Doug Rohrer and his work involving the importance of interleaving when learning various topics. (This approach is especially important in learning mathematically-based subjects.) Rohrer knocks it out of the park with his team’s gold-standard, pre-registered study “A randomized controlled trial of interleaved mathematics practice.” As the everyday English abstract notes:

“Every school day, many millions of mathematics students complete a set of practice problems that can be solved with the same strategy, such as adding fractions by finding a common denominator. In an alternative approach known as interleaved practice, practice problems are arranged so that no two consecutive problems can be solved by the same strategy, and this approach forces students to choose an appropriate strategy for each problem on the basis of the problem itself. We conducted a large randomized classroom study and found that a greater emphasis on interleaved practice dramatically improved test scores.”

Great stuff! [Hat tip: Ryan Stocker]

Cracks in the Ivory Tower

This insightful interview by Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed with the authors of the new book Cracks in the Ivory Tower is well worth reading in full.  A few key grafs relate some of the author’s findings about universities:

“…the more financially insecure a department is—e.g., by having a high faculty-to-major ratio, declining enrollments, a bad job market or few opportunities for outside grants and revenue sources—the more often its classes seem to appear as gen-ed requirements. Also, mandatory gen-ed credits have gotten more stringent over the years—especially in writing composition, foreign languages and the ‘first-year experience’ classes that many universities now require. Keep in mind that in most universities, the more butts in seats, the more money your department gets. If you can’t get volunteers to take your classes, you can always force students to take the classes instead and say it’s for their own good. It’s also pretty easy to convince yourself it really is for their own good.

“A learning objective that looks good on paper ends up actually becoming a way to prop up departments that need enrollment, even though students are not learning much in their courses. And the students— or others—end up footing the bill through tuition payments on a largely ineffective product…

“Universities are perplexing places. They are filled with left-leaning faculty (like Jason) and even more left-leaning staff and administrators who profess a commitment to social justice. Yet most universities work hard to increase their status by becoming ever more exclusive and elitist. Universities are hierarchical in their own operations, and reinforce other social hierarchies in their outcomes. They serve as gatekeepers of prestige, power and status. Many top institutions have plenty of physical capacity to expand the number of students they admit, but they instead work to keep admissions rates and the number of undergraduates as low as possible, all to enhance the elite status of their brand.”

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

 

Dreyer’s English

Posted on June 7, 2019 by - Uncategorized

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, by Benjamin Dreyer, vice president, executive managing editor and copy chief of Random House.  Dreyer is one of the most delightfully droll writers of non-fiction we know of, full of wonderful little quips like “The only thing worse than the ungodly ‘incentivize’ is its satanic little sibling, ‘incent’.” You’ll learn of common mistakes in writing that cause editors to sigh, along with confusable words, trimmables, commonly misspelled names, and why it’s important to verify quotes. (If nothing else, Dreyer’s English taught us to try to be even more careful to verify.)  Barb always wondered why her American editors corrected her use of “towards” to “toward”—Dreyer explains why. Dreyer’s only flaw was that he tended to go off on irrelevant political tirades that will quickly date the book—a bit like holding a treasured glass of Château d’Yquem knowing you will have to fish gnats out to drink it.

Coincidences and Learning

Last year we met LHTLer Frode Hiorth in Oslo, Norway. Frode wrote about a strange coincidence involving last week’s book recommendation—Pakistan: A Hard Country.  Frode had had the book on his shelf for many years, and the day before the Cheery Friday email, he’d finally just taken it down and read a few chapters.  So he was very surprised to see the recommendation the next day! Frode notes: “In Oslo where I live we have quite a large Pakistani immigrant population, and I wish more Norwegians read more about Pakistan, because I think most people don’t know how many languages are spoken, how big the country is, etc.  Instead they (people from Oslo:-) sit in the back seat of a taxi with a Pakistani taxi driver without any idea that for instance Punjabi and Urdu are two different languages. If they instead had learned a bit more, the taxi-trips can be quite interesting:-)”

The Simple Trick to Memorize Anything

Yes, it’s 4-time US Memory Champion Nelson Dellis back with a simple back-to-basics video talking about the SEE-LINK-GO method he outlined in his terrific book Remember It! (Basically, it is Nelson’s 3 step foolproof method for memorizing all things).

Barb on The T-Shaped Podcast

Barb had a wonderful time talking to @RealGilbertLee on his “The T-Shaped Podcast.”  Their discussion ranged from Barb’s childhood to the Coursera course and much more!”

Sleep Is Important in Making Your Learning Last

Here is a fantastic paper in Science about how sleep enables the learning process to “get a grip” on your brain: “Rehearsal initiates systems memory consolidation, sleep makes it last.” The abstract neatly encapsulates why this research is so important. “The role of sleep therefore seems to go beyond providing additional rehearsal through memory trace reactivation, as previously thought. We conclude that repeated study induces systems consolidation, while sleep ensures that these transformations become stable and long lasting. Thus, sleep and repeated rehearsal jointly contribute to long-term memory consolidation.”[Hat tip Alan Woodruff, via npj Science of Learning Research Roundup.]

Israeli researchers discover sleep repairs DNA damage accumulated during our waking hours

And here’s an article by Naama Baraka in ISRAEL21c about another important study revealing why pretty much all critters need to sleep.  Study co-author Lior Appelbaum notes:

“During wakefulness, we accumulate DNA damage in the neurons in the brain…. It’s like potholes in the road. Roads accumulate wear and tear, especially during daytime rush hours, and it is most convenient and efficient to fix them at night, when there is light traffic.”

Appelbaum’s tips for having a good sleep are “To sleep regularly and on time and as much as needed. Not to delay sleep hours and not to have long sleep deprivations.” [Hat tip Rex Freriks]

Science says Silence is Much More Important to Our Brains than We Think

We’ve long been of the opinion that silence is golden (hence our occasional harping about loud restaurants.) This article shows there’s something healthy about silence: Key graf: “When you are not distracted by noise or goal-orientated tasks, there appears to be a quiet time that allows your conscious workspace to process things. During these periods of silence, your brain has the freedom it needs to discover its place in your internal and external world..” Okay, and now we’re left wanting to go to Finland. 😛

The Pros and Cons of Noise-Canceling Headphones

This article from the New York Times gives a good overview of noise-cancelling earphones.  We have a pair of the Bose QuietComfort 20s that reporter Geoffrey Morrison mentions, but frankly, for planes, we still prefer our bulky but virtually screaming-baby-proof 31 dB Peltor Earmuffs. (We’ve also learned to sleep in these travel essentials when wild parties erupt in the hotel room next door.)

Los tesoros ocultos de la neurociencia

Here’s an article written by Barb (for translation) that appeared in the Spanish magazine Telos.  Enjoy!

Rateforsuccess—a Way of Evaluating Videos

Gideon Isaac at Rateforsuccess.com has developed a website where an educator can put a video of a lecture on it (actually the video has to be on Vimeo or YouTube or Coursera, the website only stores links). Viewers can then comment at various points in the video, or give a numerical rating on various aspects (such as interest, or humor, or understanding, or agreement, or whatever else the professor has decided to ask for). These numerical ratings can be charted, and averaged, so that the professor has an idea of what parts of his lecture need to be worked on and improved or clarified.

If you are interested, Gideon would love for you to create an account on the site and try it out—it also works with text lectures.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

 

Pakistan

Posted on May 30, 2019 by - Uncategorized

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Pakistan: A Hard Country, by Anatol Lieven. Barb read this book preparation for her upcoming trip to Pakistan—but now that she’s read it, she’s realized what a comprehensive, thought-provoking, beautifully written book it is: truly a masterpiece of on-the-ground research. You may be surprised to discover ideas such as why sharia law is preferable for many Pakistanis to western (and often deeply corrupt) legal processes, and to learn just how deeply diverse Pakistan’s religious base is. Pakistan came together in a way almost guaranteed to make it a challenging country to govern—it can be difficult for outsiders to appreciate the dramatically diverse demands of the population.

Here’s a snippet of Lieven’s writing involving his journey through the little town of Shapqadar to do more interviews. “Bypass roads are unknown in small towns in Pakistan and we had made the mistake of travelling on a market day. Traffic jam doesn’t begin to describe the results – more like a double reef knot. The crossroads in the centre of town was a maelstrom of dust and exhaust fumes, apparently sucking into it cars, buses, trucks, scooter rickshaws, horse-carts, donkey-carts, men pushing carts, men on horseback and one understandably depressed-looking camel, all mixed up with a simply incredible number of people on foot for such a small town, as if the heavens had opened on a Sunday morning and rained humanity on Shapqadar. Out of the dust-shrouded mêlée the brightly painted lorries with their great carved wooden hoods loomed like war elephants in an ancient battle.”

Background research (and writing) doesn’t get any better than that. Lieven does his homework in knitting a comprehensive perspective of an extraordinary country. If you want to learn about the history, religions, government, and social mores of a critically important country on the global stage, you couldn’t do better than to read Lieven’s critically-acclaimed book.

Barb speaking in Pakistan and Panama

Pakistan

  • Islamabad: Brief keynote at 3:00 on June 12 in conjunction with the Higher Education Commission. To attend the Islamabad talk, RSVP with Ms Wajiha Hasan – whasan@hec.gov.pk.
  • Lahore: LUMS—a panel discussion at 3:30 pm June 13th, followed by a keynote at 5:00 pm.
  • Karachi:  Panel discussion at the Aga Khan University at 3:00 pm June 14th, followed by a keynote at 4:00 pm.

To attend the Lahore or Karachi talks, RSVP with minhal.sheikh@lums.edu.pk or marwa.mohkam@lums.edu.pk.

Panama

  • Barb will be in Panama City, Panama, speaking for senior executives of the Inter-American Development Bank with  HyperIsland about “Learning How to Change,” on the morning of June 5th.

A New Language Learning App, Rooted in Neuroscience

Gabriel Wyner is the author of one of our favorite books on language learning, Fluent Forever. (The Audible version is read by Gabriel himself.) He’s been building a language learning app rooted in the neuroscience of learning, and it just came out a month ago. Truth be told, it looks spectacular. There’s a two week free trial and he’s offering Cheery Friday readers an exclusive 40% off discount on a 2-year subscription (Use code ‘cheery40′), and 20% off of any other subscription (Use code ‘cheery20’), valid through 7/31.

A Lifetime Dream Achieved (and Barb Was There to See It!)

As you know, we’re big fans of the blog Online Learning Success, run by Pat Bowden—we frequently link to her articles.  When we were in Australia last week we got to meet up with Pat in Brisbane; we helped her achieve a lifetime dream!  Read all about it in Pat and Barb’s adventure here.  

An Interview with Barb at University of Technology Sydney about How to Make Videos More Engaging

Following her workshop at the University of Technology, Sydney, Barb gave an interview that summarized and dug deeper into some of the ideas. As Barb notes: “Quality videos add a lot to an online class. Yet instructors all too often create online classes by placing links and references online and telling students to have at it. When videos are made for such a class, they can be stultifyingly boring. But the advantages of learning through well-made video are obvious. Why should a student bother to become engaged if the professor can’t even be bothered to make worthwhile videos?”

Changing the Landscape of Local Learning—LHTL in Kazakhstan

Enterprising countries like Kazakhstan know that the future lies in learning—and teaching youth how to learn effectively is the best way to give the country a boost that will last lifetimes. Led by Edgravity e-learning company founder Aigerim Khafizova, Academia.kz and Edgravity have teamed together to create a truly Kazakh version of the Learning How to Learn course, starring education and development specialist Eskendir Bestai, physicist Ainur Koshkinbayeva and television presenter Talgat Almanov. The Kazakh course is not a simply a translation. As the head of academia.kz, Nartay Ashim, notes:

“Instead of translating the course, we thought that it’s better to create the course with Kazakh characters involving Kazakh children in the course. We tried to create (the course) close to the audience… We could have translated it adding subtitles, but it would have lost its ‘nativeness’.”

“The course will change the landscape of local education in two ways. First of all, it provides acclaimed learning techniques that will help every Kazakh speaking student master any field. Secondly, the Kazakh course is available for free and will be a great start in integrating online education to the lifestyle of local audience. These perspectives correlate with Edgravity’s value of promoting lifelong learning in Kazakhstan.”

Read about the course’s origins here, and check it out on either of the following two platforms:

 

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

Checklist Manifesto

Posted on May 24, 2019 by - Uncategorized

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Books of the Week

  • Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science, by Atul Gawande. We’ve often wondered about exactly who gets to be the guinea pig when surgeons first begin to branch out independently in their practice, or when they begin to use new procedures. After reading Gawande’s book, we realize we should have wondered about much more. How do experts make decisions in that amorphous period when someone’s dying, but there are a thousand and more reasons why—and different experts will have different opinions? Virtually every chapter of Gawande’s beautifully written book starts like a thriller. This is one of those books you can’t put down. A National Book Award finalist. [Recommended by Tom Hiebert, who points to Gawande’s quote: “Surgeons don’t believe in talent. They believe in practice.”]
  • The Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande. Gawande is actually perhaps best known for The Checklist Manifesto, so, having read Complications and been converted into lifelong Gawande fans, we couldn’t resist picking up this important book. The biggest breakthroughs in life are often due to surprisingly simple ideas, and the Checklist Manifesto reveals how simple checklists make an extraordinary difference in industry after industry, including, as it turns out, surgery.  (Is it possible that checklists of the sort Gawande describes could help teachers as they lift students off for learning?) Great, thought-provoking book.

Memory Hacks for Medical Doctors

Shiv Gaglanico is simultaneously a medical and MBA student at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Harvard Business School. His writing about using associations to remember key pieces of information is a good reminder for us all.  And notice, in medicine, the idea of “you can always just look it up” leads to poorer patient care.  For medical doctors and K-12 students alike, a foundation of knowledge in long-term memory is an essential part of learning.

How to Memorize the Morse Code

4-time US Champion Nelson Dellis is back, this time with a fantastic video that helps you to not only remember how Morse code looks, but remember what the code sounds like—the way the experts want you to remember it.  Wonderful, creative memory work at it’s best!

The Optimal Number of Children

Perhaps surprisingly, we’ve been asked our advice on having children. Having children is a pretty ducky thing to do, in our experience. 🙂  This wonderful, semi-tongue-in-cheek article from The Atlantic explores the optimal number of children to have.

Great (well, at Least Kinda Fun) Moments in Olive Oil Video Reviews

As you know, we here at LHTL are rather geeky about the physical and mental health effects of well-made extra virgin olive oil.  We enjoy watching the videos made by Dylan Ebbers of Olive Oil Lovers. Here’s a not-to-be-missed (if you’re into low key quirky olive oil nerdiness) video about the extra virgin olive oil ULIVA produced by Agraria Riva del Garda from the Province of Trento in Italy. (Meanwhile, we’ve been enjoying oil from all sorts of tiny cottage olive oil producers at farmers’ markets in Western Australia.)

How Smartphones Sabotage Your Brain’s Ability to Focus

This sharp video from Daniela Hernandez of the Wall Street Journal uses terrific visual metaphors to help you understand why you should step back and avoid letting smartphones dominate your life.

An Encouraging TED Talk about Language Learning

As this very nice TED talk by Lýdia Machová observes: “Want to learn a new language but feel daunted or unsure where to begin? You don’t need some special talent or a “language gene.” In an upbeat, inspiring talk, she reveals the secrets of polyglots (people who speak multiple languages) and shares four principles to help unlock your own hidden language talent—and have fun while doing it.”

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team